


i needed to lose you to love me

by Anonymous



Category: Produce 101 (TV), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love, seungwoo is his bf and seungyoun is his supportive best friend turned possible love interest, tfw you have a boyfriend but suddenly contract a disease born out of unrequited love, yohan is very sad and has no self-preservation skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21748870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: yohan is so easily overwhelmed and his body never works in his own favour. the throbbing in his ankle and the stray petals stuck to the edge of the sink are evidence enough of that.(yohan contracts hanahaki disease and suddenly everything around him begins to fall apart.)
Relationships: Cho Seungyeon | Seungyoun/Kim Yohan, Han Seungwoo/Kim Yohan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41
Collections: Anonymous





	i needed to lose you to love me

**Author's Note:**

> edit: this fic was originally meant to be multi-chaptered, but i've lost interest in doing so bc of multiple factors, but mainly x1's disbandment ruining my want to write as of late. it was an expansion on [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20020735/chapters/48991358) oneshot.  
>    
> (title from lose you to love me by selena gomez)

it’s midnight and yet yohan can’t close his weary eyes.

in part, it’s probably because of seungwoo, still clad in his jeans and jacket, sliding beneath the sheets and curling around his collapsed form, humming happily when yohan manages to push back into his touch with the little bit of strength he has left. it has become a bit of pitiful fact that yohan, riddled with desolate emotions that most are blissfully unaware of, lives and breathes for han seungwoo’s unabiding attention. the others, or most of them at least, had teased him about it as he watched with a pout as seungwoo slipped out of the dorm into the evening, but seungyoun, thoughtful seungyoun who had stumbled upon too much of yohan’s unusual breakdowns, just ruffled his hair and casted down a smile tinted with pity that only he could pinpoint. because walking through the door was just another reminder of the closing connection between them, was just another reminder of how the heart that had once been so open for yohan’s prying gaze was shut behind a lock and key. yohan breathes for seungwoo, but breathing has become a little too difficult, because it’s not just seungwoo’s arms trapping him in a vice-like grip that has him stuttering for air. 

seungwoo presses a kiss to his temple, stroking his long fingers through the messy strands resting across yohan’s forehead, his free hand locking tightly over yohan’s and squeezing. their leader, _his_ leader, is so soft in his affections until all of a sudden he’s not, lips dipping beneath the collar of his ryan pyjamas, teeth nipping at the sensitive skin. it’s such a quick dip into intimacy, and it stabs at yohan’s sanity just as viciously as it burns heat across his skin, warmth that is wanted for a second, but then _that_ feeling arises, blazing across his lungs and up his throat. each touch of seungwoo’s against yohan’s weak body causes another stem to spring up in the garden that is bursting out of his rib cage and maybe yohan could disguise the slamming of his hand against his mouth and the widening of his eyes as a byproduct of something else entirely, but there was no mistaking the blood coating his palm.

“hyung,” he whines, voice low and scratchy, dragging the sound through clenched teeth, trying his best to maintain an image of embarrassment at seungwoo mouthing at the sharp lines of his shoulders, when all he wishes he could do is hiss at the pain as his lungs are littered with petal after petal falling from thorny roots. “‘m tired, let me sleep,” yohan mumbles, dragging his shaking palm back under the white covers, pleading that the contrasting scarlet streaked across his chin isn’t visible in the darkness of the unlit room and that seungwoo doesn’t notice that his hand is curled into a stiff fist, a bunch of petals threatening to spill through the gaps between his fingers. there’s so many of them, too many of them, and the heavy weight grates against his fragile nerves, even as seungwoo coos at his sleepy tone and presses his lips again and again over the curve of yohan’s jaw. it’s a lovely kind of hurt that yohan is so addicted to, willingly submerging himself in seungwoo’s imitation of love, all heartfelt until you peered closer and saw the cracks in the once perfect surface.

what yohan had once felt for seungwoo had thrummed through his body from the tips of his toes all the way to his trembling palms. it was that soft, dreamlike kind of love kids would idolise in fairytales and it set yohan’s skin alight, drawing seungwoo’s attention to him like a moth to a burning flame. but fires have to dim eventually and that once hopeful feeling has escaped him, has left him scrounging for some sense of happiness at the depths of the sea. yohan drowns in the other’s neglect, shipwrecked in seungwoo’s embrace that no longer provides the same comfort, but instead fills his delirious mind with mixed signals and steals his last threads of hope. seungwoo had once been the saviour, the prince on the deck above with a loving smile and content eyes, but now he’s the sea witch dragging yohan further and further down into the ocean of his own insecurities and he doesn’t even know it. seungwoo fell in love with the way yohan loved him. and a love born out of something so disingenuous would never last long. 

seungwoo noses against the curve of yohan’s sickly pale cheek. “you’re stuck in your head again,” he murmurs, voice low to not wake the others that share the same thin walls. it’s always been a blessing that years of broken bones and sprained ankles trained yohan in the art of keeping silent when your whole body is screaming. the same thin walls was a gift in disguise that yohan used to know whenever someone neared the bathroom that suffered as he spilled his guts out into the tiles. “what’s wrong, yohanie?” yohan’s lips crack under the pressure of his teeth, biting so hard to not let the heart that’s shrivelling beside masses of vines vault up and out of his throat. there’s so much wrong, yohan knows. love is meant to be equal, but somewhere along the yellow brick road, their hands unlocked and seungwoo took a different path. there’s a forest growing in his chest, blossoming under seungwoo’s loving and yet not-so-full-of-love care.

“it’s just been a long day, hyung,” yohan replies, blinking up blearily at ceiling, expression blank and void of the emotions far too present in his wide eyes that are thankfully out of seungwoo’s sight. seungwoo makes a noise of discontent, smoothing his hand over the ridges of yohan’s stomach, nuzzling into the expanse of exposed neck and enclosing around yohan’s trembling frame. tears prick at the corner of yohan’s eyes, his heart torn and his thoughts scattered, because the flowers in his lungs can only mean one thing and yet seungwoo still treats him as if he’s a delicate little daisy. and, well, truly, seungwoo isn’t wrong in thinking of him as such. there’s a weakness to his once solid limbs, a fragility to the frame that had taken victory in so many fights. yohan shakes and squirms, barely breathing as petals clog up his airways, and there was only so much he could do to play it off as a passing sickness. he’s sick, so fucking sick, and he wants seungwoo to tear him apart piece by piece from the inside, would plunge his frail fingers into his caved in chest and play he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not with the flowers clinging desperately to his aching lungs. _if you don’t love me anymore, if you never did, just tell me, hyung,_ he once wrote on a note that was quickly scrapped. yohan’s strength ends when his own survival comes into play and he’s a coward who loves others too much and loves himself too little. he thrives under seungwoo’s care in the daylight and sobs himself to sleep in agony as the moonlight casts over his dying form.

in the dead of night, as seungwoo sleeps peaceful and unknowing, yohan drags himself out of the older’s loosened grip, moving through the hallways of the dorm with silent footsteps, petals carefully clasped in his hands so no evidence of the crime only known to two scatters across the spotless floor. the taste of blood is everywhere, strong on his tongue, coated to the roof of his mouth - there’s a dull pounding against his skill, pain spreading across his temple paired with a rapid heartbeat that thuds through every inch of him - and the artificial lighting of the bathroom is blinding and the sound of water sweeping the flowers down the drain is deafening. as he watches the proof of his undoing wash away, yohan laments his own unability to become accustomed to his issues, but he’s so easily overwhelmed and his body never works in his own favour. the throbbing in his ankle and the stray petals stuck to the edge of the sink are evidence enough of that.

yohan had once looked up roses so fondly. maybe it was the hopeful yet hopeless romantic in him, the part of him that wanted dearly to love and be loved so purely in the most cliche of ways. falling for seungwoo had been so easy. his voice echoing in the practice room, fascinating, captivating, was a siren’s call, dragging yohan into his orbit. seungwoo draws attention in so naturally, births a fixation with his soft tones and his warm smile and those eyes full of every emotion possible. seungwoo was, is and always will be his leader, dependable, mature, full of wisdom, and behind it all, he was both charming and haunting, holding the weight of the world on his shoulders with a grin on his lips. everything yohan isn’t. everything yohan couldn’t be. yohan had never expected the unrequited to transform to requited and in the end, his doubts turned out to be true. it’s fitting, really - a symbol of affection malformed, turned ugly as the hope for romance died, as yohan’s naivety sank into bitterness. the prickly thorns that scrape over his throat are as jagged as his fraying health and the passion the flower symbolises is quick and sudden and so immense, just as brutal as the frenzied coughs that shake his whole frame. at least the petals as so red that if anyone found them they wouldn’t realise that they are drenched in yohan’s blood. 

there’s a knock on the door behind him and yohan doesn’t bother to hesitate before humming his consent, not even flinching when the door clicks open behind him. the kids are too exhausted from the current media climate to wake and yohan is too quiet for his few elders to pick up on exactly how long he had lingered in this empty room. the only person who would enter in these early hours is the one person who would search him out in his worst moments just to curl an arm around his shaking shoulders. “yohanie,” seungyoun murmurs, voice heavy with sleep and worry and the blatant kindness that yohan could never deserve and their eyes meet, sharing a kind of heaviness to matches neither of their carefree facades. seungyoun approaches him cautiously, as if nearing a wounded, frantic stray, brushing his fingers gently over the corner of yohan’s mouth, where blood crusted over his lips, eyeing the stain of red with a disdain that unfurls an ugly kind of emotion in yohan’s chest. seungyoun doesn’t need this worry piled onto his shoulders. they have so much ahead to face and yohan is shattering in his grasp, killed by a man who knows nothing of what he’s doing to the one person who’d give him everything.

suddenly, another wave is crashing over him and he freezes, doe eyes snapping open in panic and lips shaking over the words he wishes would come out with ease, the sound stuck beneath the cascade of roses. but seungyoun is already so used to this, hushing yohan’s tiny, choked noises of pain, rubbing a consoling hand over yohan’s quivering back as he spills out the contents of his lungs into the sink, helping the younger fall to his knees when the calm returns after the storm. yohan flushes, fingers scrambling to wipe the blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, adding to the mess seungyoun already tried to clean away, but he’s still drowsy and clumsy in his sickness, and his hand awkwardly smears red across his face until seungyoun cradles his bony wrist carefully, settling down beside him as he scans yohan’s slumped figure. embarrassment flares over his cold skin, not the light blush of a simple mistake but the overbearing reminder of his messy inability to do anything right. 

“it’s happening more often now,” seungyoun states simply, tone laced with a blunt kind of anxiety that makes alarm bells ring in yohan’s muddled head, but he doesn’t say anything else. the first few times he’d stumbled upon yohan, with his bunny teeth blemished with scarlet and his hands caked with blood as he maniacally attempted to sweep away the petals tainting the tiles, he’d fallen so easily back on his role as energizer. the nervous laughter, the jokes tinted with a hint of desperation, the tormented stare - yohan broke underneath his attention even more and found himself openly sobbing for the first time in front of anyone but himself, panting and crying as if the entire world was ending apart right at his fingertips. seungyoun acts differently now. not calmer, surely not any less troubled, but in a life as full of energy as this, in the moments where yohan needs anything but what has become his normalcy, he is quieter, a solid shoulder for yohan to rest his weary head on. his strong arms wrap around yohan’s small waist, grounding him down to earth so he doesn’t lose himself in his own head full of self-loathing. he doesn’t avoid any of it, cradling yohan so closely that the horror painted across the younger’s skin must be soiling his shirt by now, and the whispered apologies on yohan’s part are shushed away, a comforting hand brushing through his hair. if yohan had any love left in him - well, he thinks that falling for seungyoun would be just as easy. yohan had dug his own hands into his chest and tore out his still-beating heart and dropped it at seungwoo’s feet, but loving seungyoun so devotedly may have hurt less or maybe it may have hurt more. yohan can’t say for sure he’ll never know for sure but part of him hopes so desperately that he can at least be saved from another case of loving with no return. because if yohan had any love left in him, there might be another set of petals on the bathroom floor.

the dorm is silent. seungwoo never wakes. no one else is unlucky enough to wander in on a boy with so much cheerfulness in his nature dying on the bathroom tiles. yohan is thankful for that. it hurts so much but he can’t burden anymore people with the spoils of his inner conflict. instead, he buries his face into seungyoun’s neck and tries his best to breathe to no avail, working his best to pretend for a moment that he isn’t fading away.

the truth behind these roses is something they’ll both take to their graves, sooner or later.


End file.
